ARTS LETTERSPicture changes when you do the numbersComparing the combined grosses of the five best-picture Oscar nominations against each of the individual four top earners of 2005 could lead one to conclude that the “best-picture nominees rake in the praise, not necessarily the bucks” (“Outside the box office,” March 5). However, box-office gross is not only a poor indicator of taste, but of profits as well.

INTO VIEWJust a couple of San Diego boysNEW YORK – It was 20 years ago that Kevin and Ken Dow's parents drove their budding musician sons, then 12 and 15, to perform in Tijuana as members of the Eccentrics, a fledgling San Diego rock band that specialized in cover versions of songs by the Cure and U2.

ARTS NEWS SCENESymphony to swing for the fences at Petco ParkWhenever you hear the national anthem at a baseball park, sometimes it's an instrumental recording, a lip-syncing charade or an a cappella nightmare such as Roseanne Barr's caterwauling once upon a San Diego Padres game.

You've got a better catch phrase than I, Gunga Din!When “Brokeback Mountain's” anguished and romantically frustrated Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) tells his increasingly distant lover Ennis (Heath Ledger) “I wish I knew how to quit you,” two things were immediate – Jack finally knew that the worth of his romantic investment was roughly a wooden nickel, and moviegoers were simply not going to be able to stop themselves from saying it.